The House on the Marsh by Florence Warden

Mr. Reade's cruel and prejudiced accusations against Mr. Rayner had not in the least shaken my faith in the kindness and goodness of the master of the Alders; but I felt anxious to prove to myself that the charges he brought against him were groundless. Mr. Reade's suggestion that he let his family sleep in the damp house while he passed his nights elsewhere, for instance, was absurd in the extreme. Where else could he sleep without any one's knowing anything about it? I often heard his voice and step about the house until quite late; he was always one of the first in the dining-room to our eight-o'clock breakfast, and even on the wettest mornings he never looked as if he had been out in the rain.

It often seems to me that, when I have been puzzling myself fruitlessly for a long time over any matter, I find out quite simply by accident what I want to know. Thus, only the day after my talk with Mr. Reade in the shop, I was nursing Haidee, who did not feel inclined to play after lesson-time, when she said --